Posted
by
Soulskill
on Saturday January 08, 2011 @02:50PM
from the rest-in-peace dept.

tkprit writes "What a shame that a Congresswoman makes herself available to her constituents and she and six of her staff were gunned down for the effort. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona was shot, along with members of her staff, for trying to hear the concerns of the people she represents."
CNN reports that at least 12 people were shot by the gunman. According to NPR, "The suspect ran off and was tackled by a bystander. He was taken into custody. Witnesses described him as in his late teens or early 20s." Update: 01/08 20:07 GMT by S: Other sources are reporting she's still in surgery, and early reports have been amended to list Congresswoman Giffords in critical condition.

Mostly the same, really? I read the last three posted pages of comments at Fox News, and had to turn away. Gems like "It's Obama's fault for agitating" made me nauseous. I read about 40 comments on the HuffPo, and it was mostly updates on what was going on. The few partisan comments that were there were merely pointing to the history of violence that Giffords had been subjected to in the past.

There's only extreme wing of a political movement that is going as far as shooting representatives of a party.

They must be modding it heavily, then...I've been following Huffington Post's liveblog, mainly because they're posting stuff from multiple sources, and the initial comments were very similar to the ones seen on Fox.

I hope you're being sarcastic. Because if not, you are espousing that if you don't like someone's viewpoint, just kill 'em.

Our republic was set up explicitly to avoid that, not encourage it. If you don't like Obama or your Congresscritter's stance on the issues, you vote against them. If your friends and neighbors disagree, that's too damn bad, suck it up. The ammo box, in fact, is not a choice, and anyone who chooses to use it needs to be removed from said society.

If you're one of those Second Amendment nuts, you really need to read your history book on why it was passed. Here's a hint: Contrary to popular Second Amendment nut mantra, it was to defend the United States against outsiders, not to attack the United States and its institutions yourself. Duh.

If you are being sarcastic, knock it off. It's too soon after a tragedy for those kinds of comments, and people will take you seriously.

Wow, dude. You really need to go back and re-read your history. Or maybe do it right for the first time. You are just plain wrong.

Proof that you are wrong even precedes our Declaration of Independence. The reason people were given the right to own arms, is because their government is obligated to keep a "standing army" to repel invaders. But freedom lovers (including our Founding Fathers) were aware that it was that very standing army that was the biggest threat to the people and their freedom. This was evident from their own recent world history, which was full of countries being taken over by their own armies.

"Wherever standing armies are kept up, and when the right of the people to keep and bear arms is, under any color or pretext whatsoever, prohibited, liberty, if not already annihilated, is on the brink of destruction." - Henry St. George Tucker. Source: Blackstone's 1768 Commentaries on the Laws of England

"... that the people have a Right to bear Arms for the Defence of the State, and as Standing Armies in Time of Peace are dangerous to Liberty, they ought not to be kept up, and that the military should be kept under strict Subordination to, and governed by the Civil Power." - North Carolina's Declaration of Rights, 1776

"The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government." - Thomas Jefferson

"A free people ought not only to be armed and disciplined, but they should have sufficient arms and ammunition to maintain a status of independence from any who might attempt to abuse them, which would include their own government." -- George Washington

"... And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time, that its people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to the facts, pardon and pacify them..." -- Thomas Jefferson [emphasis mine]

The history books are full of this stuff. The reason for the Second Amendment -- very clearly and quite easily provably -- was to protect ourselves, if necessary, from our own government and any army it fields. So YOU go study your history. It is obvious that you need to.

I looked up the First State of the Union Address (from whence the Washington quote was supposed to have come), and indeed, the Wikiquote version is correct:

"A free people ought not only to be armed but disciplined; to which end a uniform and well digested plan is requisite: And their safety and interest require that they should promote such manufactories, as tend to render them independent on others, for essential, particularly for military supplies."

Regardless of his exact meaning, that statement cannot be considered to support my point. Conceded.

Wikiquote states that my first Jefferson quote is "falsely attributed". However, the author of that claim did not sign it, and it has no other citations or references, other than a casual mention of someone unnamed doing a search of Google Print, so I have no reason to take that seriously. On the other hand, monticello.org does say that it is likely a spurious quote, but that Jefferson DID say:

"No freeman shall be debarred the use of arms [within his own lands or tenements]." (Second draft of the Virginia Constitution, Papers of Thomas Jefferson, 1:353.)

Which of course is not the same thing. However, my second Jefferson quote appears in a letter he wrote on Nov. 13 1787, to New York senator William Stephens Smith. His meaning there is very clear and exactly as I stated above.

The other quotes are also accurate as I have presented them. Thank you for pointing out the errors. I have corrected my collection of quotes.

Thank you, but I already have a pretty good collection of historical material. Among them is an excellent collection of The Federalist Papers, which also contain writings that support my position.

My quotes (other than the two that turned out to be misquotes, which I admitted and corrected) are accurate, and they are anything but out of context. In Jefferson's letter, for example, he was discussing precisely the topic we have been discussing here. The same with the quote from Blackstone, and North Carolina's Declaration. There is no error of context on my part.

I have to repeat this question, as I have to others: if the Second Amendment did not refer to an individual right to carry arms, then why did the Supreme Court rule that it did, just last year? The reason they did is because that is what the historical record clearly shows that it meant. There is no mistake.

Or on the other hand, the extreme that blames an entire group of people for the actions of a derranged man that has absolfuckinglutely NOTHING to do with anything that group of people?

The shooter was Jared Loughner [msn.com] and if you watch his Youtube [youtube.com] channel you'll see his simply a mentally disturbed individual who ascribes to nothing even remotely resembling Republican or Tea party beliefs. He has an entire video where he burns an American flag for God's sake, and another were he venomously declares he refuses to believe in God and that the Government is trying to mind control everyone with "grammar control". I haven't been to any Tea Party meetings but I have the feeling Flag burning and denying the existence of God prolly aint listed on their usually scheduled agenda.

But don't let the facts get in the way of taking a tragedy and trying to use it to to further your own political preconceptions because clearly THAT is more important to you than the suffering the lives lost today.

People waiving the flag of false equivalence are intellectually corrupt. Violent rhetoric is not coming from both sides of the political spectrum, it's coming from the Fox News right.

I think a lot of people buy that crap because they're too gutless to take a stand for what's right.

You have missed a great deal if you think the Left isn't full of violent rhetoric. Forget all the stuff leveled at Bush? Heck, a CBS show literally displayed a picture of Bush with "Snipers Wanted" imposed over it. Look at Bill Ayers, who has at least some relationship with the President of the United States, and is unrepentant of the violent actions of the Weather Underground group he helped found. He has event been quoted as wishing he did more. Look at the violence at G20 conventions or the death threats against people like Ann Coulter. I could go on and on. Check out this page for a large number of links to "Left-wing Eliminationist Rhetoric" http://pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/?s=ELIMINATIONIST [pajamasmedia.com]

Take some advice from Media Matters after the Discovery Channel incident. Should be applied to all similar incidents.. "Discovery Channel hostage-taker is the perpetrator of a crime-not liberal, conservative or a chance to score points " http://twitter.com/mmfa/status/22739013962 [twitter.com]

Heck, a CBS show literally displayed a picture of Bush with "Snipers Wanted" imposed over it.

Annnnd? Was said CBS show promoting violence?

Look at Bill Ayers, who has at least some relationship with the President of the United States, and is unrepentant of the violent actions of the Weather Underground group he helped found.

Look, you have to look forty fucking years ago to find a counter-example.

Look at the violence at G20 conventions

Look at thousands of cops being unable to defend a squad car from 200 protesters. A squad car left alone on a street corner for hours....almost like they were hoping it would be vandalized so they could whine about violent protesters...huh, interesting.

Just out of curiosity . . . why can someone imagine that. Acorn has never called for that, used any of that in it's rhetoric, been accused of anything like that. The worst accusation against them that you might not be aware was thoroughly disproved was of 'aiding' a pimp, the worst accusation that had some truth behind it was that they were not properly policing people gathering signatures for vote registration.

Yet . . . some people can imagine this coming from Acorn more easily than they can imagine someone being influenced by a massive media network and political machine like Fox that routinely espouses eliminationist rhetoric.

Palin put a crosshairs over the congresswoman's face in a political setting.

The congressman's opponent last time had a rally where they fired M-16's to show how they felt about his opposition.

You really shouldn't mix guns and politics unless you expect something like this to happen. It's just irresponsible. Our leaders (both sides) have become irresponsible. Lots of people are hurting while a tiny wealthy percentage is doing extremely well.

The government is giving Trillions ("T", plural now 2.1) to the wealthy and has tried multiple time to cut about 20 billion in benefits to keep people from falling into absolute poverty.

It's really not the time for Fox and the right wing republicans to be making jokes about shooting people.

Fox and the right wing don't live in the real world they create their own relative reality as Karl Rove openly intended to do as a founding principle of his campaigning technique; I heard it myself over a decade ago. They want to not feel bad or at all responsible or guilty and one of many rationalizations and emotional escapes is to belittle and make less of the situation - and.... their popular technique of blaming the victim, used for many decades by their party as if it was part of the playbook (although I think its a sign of a deeper character trait common to them, as they have targeted certain demographics strongly and therefore have large numbers of certain types of people in their party-- resulting in the character of the organization to shift to reflect their changing makeup. Quite likely to the point where we can create profiles or brain scans to ID what is wrong with them-- its hard to filter out groups you can study like this and I think to some degree they've done all the hard work for researchers.)

Idiots they used to sucker with a few lines and slogans have taken it too far. It has gone out of their control, where some of those suckers are even getting elected believing the empty rhetoric that was never intended beyond getting some votes. The fanatics are so upset the instigators are getting boxed in by their own lies and deception - in a mob gone wild off of propaganda. It makes compromise more difficult and when global warming is impossible to ignore any longer they'll have their hands tied because they didn't think far enough ahead.... its already happened (different issues) to many republicans already. Bad times only make people more scared and unable to ignore problems - as times continue to get worse more scared angry people will surface. Emotional people don't think. Black and White takes less thinking-- the other party must be pure 100% evil, your politician must be 100% corrupt if they don't vote the way you want (you must be 100% correct and informed....) etc.

The only thing I find funny is just how accurately the assessment was a few years back: people are scared -- they cling to god, guns, and country(nationalism.) Bet this gunman had all 3.

"When you look at unbalanced people, how they respond to the vitriol that comes out of certain mouths about tearing down the government. The anger, the hatred, the bigotry that goes on in this country is getting to be outrageous," the sheriff said. "And unfortunately, Arizona I think has become the capital. We have become the mecca for prejudice and bigotry."

In principle I agree with you, but the thing is that a lot of people saw this sort of thing coming. There has been a lot of commentary and, at least in my own discussions, worry, about the winking incitement to violence that has been broadcast since Obama was elected.

I do feel sad when I hear of a politician being attacked this way - not just sad, but a mixture of melancholy, pessimism, pity, and a kind of sorrow for a person - a civilian - who put themselves in danger to work in public service.

But I also feel anger, anger at the unchecked, inconsiderate, dangerous, anti-social rhetoric that I've endured for the past two years, and quite likely played a part in this attack.

If the attacker turns out to be a tea party paranoid type, then I honestly believe people like Beck hold indirect responsibility for the attack. Incitement to rioting is a crime; so, in a (non-legal) way, is the winking threats and paranoia that's been on the airwaves for too long.

This is a false equivalence, at least for the media figures, because although they are rather vocal in criticizing the "other side" they, unlike Beck and his ilk, do not actually try to entice violence by making thinly veiled references and innuendo to it. Kos and Huffingtonpost do have user generated contents and there is a lot of vile stuff in it, but then again so it is in a lot of other places, like Slashdot (even more so as Slashdot does not have actual staff moderators).

So the point is that people like Beck, unlike - say - Olbermann, walk a very thin edge of the division between being a mere loudmouth-for-profit and an actual enticer to violence in the old tradition of such things.

Now if enticing political violence is justified is a wholly another matter. I personally think that wide-spread political violence in the US is a pretty much a done deal and the only real question is "when?".

Frankly, no. There are hundreds of assaults and beatings daily throughout the US and there was no (objective) evidence ever presented that this particular one was politically motivated. The police never found the alleged attackers.

Ever heard of Kenneth Gladney,

Wasn't that the man who got caught on video [mediamatters.org] faking the injuries after a 2 second scuffle? As far as I know the police did not find sufficient evidence for any sort of assault case despite of abundance of witnesses.

Btw, have you heard of an incident at Rand Paul's event where a leftist protester was briefly held down for about one second by a Tea Party member who placed his foot on her shoulder. I'm sure you have, because it was all over headline news, while the other two incidents were never mentioned at all on MSNBC, and barely so on CNN.

That is for the simple reason that there was footage of it like in the case of Kenneth Gladney, of whom I heard (that is the nature of infotainment). Should someone have a film of the other assault, it would have been cheerfully exploited and squeezed for its last advertising dollar by the "media".

Ok, since they are such adaily occurrence, can you provide some example of this "rampage". Or perhaps, the rampage is all in your, easily frightened, brain.

Just [wikipedia.org] of the top [wikipedia.org] of my head [wikipedia.org].

Frankly, these few examples are a pretty good illustration of the difference in the level and quality of the violence of the two sides. On one hand (if true) you get a broken leg and a skinned knee and on the other there are body parts littering a few city blocks.

The shooter hardly seems like a clear leftist. In the article you point to they also favorited Mein Kampf, are against federal laws, and insists on the gold and silver standard. That's a good mix of hard right and hard left. I'd say they're just pure anarchist with a mix of pure crazy.

As opposed to the direct incitement to violence, the store-smashing peace rallies, and the effigy burnings when Bush was in office? The "Bushitler" scream fests, the "revolution" talk, etc? No blathering from crazy lefties about The Man, administration criminals that should be shot, and the rest?

You mean the BS you're pulling out of your ass? We've seen it before. When Bush got re-elected, you guys laughed it up at the liberal celebrities that didn't move to Canada. Obama gets elected, and Republican governors start openly talking of secession.

Rep. Gabrielle Giffords isn't particularly liberal but is one of the 20 in Congress "in Sarah Palin's crosshairs" for her vote on health care reform.
I don't know the motives or mental state of the shooter, then again people could have said the same thing during 9/11...in this instance, look at the target, look at the political climate. Sure, many times it's the most unstable people who take the final step but they obviously pick up on signals from all the vitriol. That particular brand is simply more prevalent on the Right (or at the very least, more "popular" in media).
And yes, any knee jerk reaction with gun control ideas would be completely misguided.

Yeah, but if you use terms like "crosshairs" in the presence of disturbed people, they do crazy things. This says little about their political affiliation. But it does raise the issue of whether using violent (particularly weapon associated) terminology is wise in what should be at most polite disagreements.\

One can stretch this argument to an extreme (probably no prosecutor will) and argue that the definition of assault is the threat of violence. The threat of violence with a weapon (just using the terminology may be sufficient) is legally a special case and promotes that threat to a more serious criminal status. IANAL, but I do carry a sidearm and I do take very seriously any suggestion of its use by myself or the use of a weapon by any other person very seriously. And I acknowledge that my possessing weapons places additional responsibility on my speech and behavior. Its a shame others don't.

It isn't just "crosshairs". People like Palin are continually exhorting their followers to "reload". Her facebook page even has crosshair symbols on a map and the names of politicians who didn't vote the way Palin wanted them to.

Crazy, paranoid, murderous people exist in every society - in all subcultures, in all religions, in all age groups (with the capability to express it), across all education levels, etc.

The problems we've been having in the US, as I see it, largely spring from ignoring this, and forcing every response to a tragedy to be an implication of any groups they belong to.

Are republicans or tea party members responsible for this act? That's a misleading question. Neither answer leads to a meaningful result - and only forces us to alienate eachother further, resulting in more tragedy.

If we are to avoid having every response wedge us further into madness, the shame of such tragedies, the murder of well-meaning and innocent people, must be a problem that we all have to solve, rather than a point of blame we use as a tool.

Does the frequent madness expressed the tea party help? No - but that's all of our problem, and it isn't going to be solved just by mocking them as an enemy, or thinking of them only as monsters who kill people.

Any of us could find ourselves romanticizing violence, like the tea partiers (the legend of the tea party IS one of violence) and other folks. There but for the grace of chance go any of us.

Insanity is not something we can every 'get even' for - whether it is terrorists or confused local murderers. We can only rebuild, and work together to be able to live in a way that makes it ever less likely, while knowing that freedom will always allow it in one way or another.

to absolve certain groups who have been violently expressing their distaste of government for an extended period of time from what is an obvious result of that rhetoric, represents a strange way to think about how the world and human nature works

yes, there are crazy people everywhere. but if you give the crazy person easy access to a gun, and yell at them crazy theories about how their own government is their mortal violent enemy, you get crazy people shooting at the government. its a pretty straightforward cause and effect

you can't absolve from guilt the demagogue who has been preaching violence and hate when violence and hate is expressed exactly as the demagogue's words intend

look at the violent anti-abortion rhetoric and the shooting of the abortion provider in kansas. the crazy people are enabled by the rhetoric. plenty act on their own, but plenty more act in the name of the group that enables them

plenty more are motivated to do what they sense everyone else wants done: they derive sustenance and support form the others who clearly want hate and violence expressed, they act as martyrs, they act as fall guys, but they do act in the name of a group and a cause, not completely on their own, when the larger group is clearly filled with violence and hate. don't absolve that violence and hate in certain movements from what crazy people do

they are the tip of the spear, they do not act alone, and you are a fool if you don't understand the hate-filled group and its rhetoric enables them

When you post a graphic with people's names and gunsight logos... and you know that a fair number of the people looking at the graphic are vocal loons... and then one of those people gets shot... it's a reasonable speculation.

admit the right has engaged in irresponsible violent rhetoric. your one example does not negate that fact. in fact, when obama said that, mccain accused him of... drum roll please... irresponsible violent rhetoric

the point is that obama's one moronic statement does not excuse the volumes of violent words the right has unleashed. the point is, obama was wrong, and the right is wrong

what i want to see is someone on the right saying their use of violent rhetoric is wrong, that crazy people are out there listening and it irresponsible for someone with a large audience to engage in the verbiage they do

"Sarah Palin has the crosshairs of a gun sight over our district and when people do that, they’ve gotta realize there are consequences to that action.”--Gabrielle Gifford March 25, 2010, MSNBC Interview.

While the story indicates that a motive has not yet been determined, it also states that she recently won a close and hotly contested race with a Tea Party candidate. Hopefully, it will not be found that the teenage shooter was not responding to the Tea Party rhetoric of if we can't win in the ballot box, we will win in the streets.

It is truly a shame, but something angered the shooter enough that he took it upon himself to "fix" a problem. I wonder if election campaigning were more civil and less mud slinging/hate mongering if this shooting would have occurred.

While many people on slashdot are of many different political views and seem to be able to discuss issues civilly (for the most part), there seem to be pockets of society in the US that are not able to do that. How does anyone expect to solve any of the issues in the US or world, when there isn't even enough respect of the human person to allow for differing opinions?

Whoa there. Guns are fine, so long as the control laws we actually have are enforced and people are educated about gun safety.

That's right! If murderers knew that bullets can kill people they wouldn't fire them. As well all know, people only get shot because people firing the guns haven't been taught that it isn't a magic tickling stick.

Part of gun safety is storing guns in a manner that makes it difficult for people to steal them or for children to use them without adult supervision. A lot of guns used by criminals are stolen from law-abiding citizens' homes, who were not using a gun safe; a lot of school shootings involve guns that children take from their parents, which were not kept locked.

USA has 90 guns per 100 residents, Sweden has 30 per 100.Yet USA has almost 6 times the murder rate (the same goes for all the scandinavian countries)Why?

Well, guns in Sweden are mostly hunting weapons. We don't have concealed semi-automatic weapons. Semi-automatic or fully automatic weapons generally have only one intended use, and that is to kill people (usually at short or medium range). Sprayfire weapons (MAC-10, Uzi and the like) are no good for ANYTHING except trying to injure or kill a crowd. That's what the "spray" in spray-fire stands for. The spray is powered by the recoil of 1000 rounds per minute powering out of the barrel of a snub-nosed weapon with little in the way of stabilization.Semi-automatic handguns are similarly useless for any legitimate use. Well, handguns in general are useless.Hunting weapons don't need to be semi-automatic or fully automatic for any hunting (I think Cthulhu hunting doesn't count, as that is in imaginaryland)

You're also implying that without guns, people wouldn't find some other ways to kill each other. That's another fundamentally unsound assumption: guns make killing easier in some ways, but that's all.

I hear this bullshit all the time from Americans trying to justify widespread gun ownership and it's real crap. Guns don't make killing easier 'in some ways' - guns make killing easier period. It's the first killing weapon where you don't have to be within physical contact of your victim to kill them, and it's accurate

If someone wants you dead, he doesn't need a gun.

That's the wrong logic. If someone would like you dead and they don't have a gun then the obstacles are nearly always insurmountable and the feeling passes. With a gun you can do it any time you want, and that increases the temptation.

Yeah.... see, knife killings are NOT like the are shown in the movies. Hollywood LIED to you, son.

knife killings often take up to multiple dozens of stabs. People tend to voice their displeasure at all this stabbing...

Added to that, knife throwing is hard, accuracy is limited, and penetration depth is likewise limited. I HAVE practiced that, and it is not the easiest skill I tried to acquire.

Gun training is peanuts in comparison. I haven't shot from any large caliber handguns, only.22 long rifle guns (one step above a pellet gun, almost no recoil) and accuracy at a range of around 20 meters just isn't a big deal. Although in action you would probably be limited to around 10 meters unless you're pretty good.

That is a piece of metal, flung at speeds of around 350 m/s (1200 feet/second) with the only design specification of penetrating a human, flattening (or tumbling) and ripping through internal organs.

No, guns designed for killing people actually make killing people much, much easier.Bang, bang bang bang bang bangReading that fast aloud is the time it takes to fire six rounds into a human being, easily at a range of ten meters. There is no other tool that does that, fits in a pocket, and has millimetre accuracy at that range.

From what you said, the logical conclusion is that the strict gun control laws are a response to the high homicide rates. To prove the reverse you must establish that an *increase* in gun availability in the general population deters homicides, which is not what you said.

Japanese-Americans may have a low homicide rate, but that may be due to the social economic-class rather than any real cultural phenomenon. It would be good to cross-tabulate the data to see what the results are but I am confident that Japanese-American would have a *similar* homicide rate to their mainstream peers in the same social-economic class (maybe with geographical adjustments as well).

Well, the thing is, if people don't generally walk around with specially designed murder weapons in their pockets, then the police has less need of deadly weapons as well.This means that:a) police may not carry a gun (guns kept in a locked chamber in the boot of the patrol car, for emergencies only) or that only special forces carry guns.or b)police carry guns but don't grab their gun at the first sign of a disturbance.

See, the US also has a little problem of accidental shootings by police, which is almost unheard of in the western world. There was an incident where this happened in the UK in a train station and is still being discussed. The accidental shooting of a citizen by police actually makes international headlines in other parts of the world. In the US it barely makes the local news unless it was a well off white person. Not really news, you see.

I remember being in Tulsa, OK, and in the next street to me a dude got shot due to some gang/drug issue. I didn't see anything about it even on the local news... I mean, WTF?

The thing is, Sweden has actually quite strict gun laws. You have to be a hunter or an active member of a gun club to own a gun. If you don't go to the gun club often and practice/compete, your licence will be revoked. Generally you give it to the police, or sell it, or the police will come pick it up for you if you break the law by having it without license. I believe there will also be some legal aftermath from that.I think that if you're a hunter the license is unlimited in time but you can only buy hunting rifles. And if your doctor notices that you have a drug problem you'll lose the license. Someone with a hunting license could probably clear this up a bit as I'm uncertain.So, would you concider Sweden, or most/all scandinavian countries as opressive? Like limiting the press or other freedoms?

And we have quite an open society where most politicians regularly meet "the people". Not at all what you described.

Another funny thing. We actually have more guns per capita than the US has. And yet we have very few shootings. Most murders here are done with a knife or blunt force.I think there's something in the US culture that glorifies guns and their use, which makes this a much bigger problem there than here. Probably some manliness issue that sais that you have to be the biggest and strongest at all times, and the guy with the biggest gun is the strongest. And I think you have a social problem that aggravates this, meaning that when people have very limited options they'll use whatever resort they can to improve their situation.

This from my limitied view here overseas. I'm sure I've fallen for a few myths and misconceptions, but I try to keep up on current events, even in the US.

16 year old girls are not illegal. Buying / selling them is. There is nothing that could be done or proposed to eliminate their existence, so let's set that aside as an apples to motorcycles comparison, shall we?

Crank, coke, smack, etc. are all chemical substances. Many drugs can be created with little technical know-how, and in some cases, just the ability to cultivate plants. Others (Meth for example) can be created with easily obtained items that are not strictly controlled due to many and common other uses. Meth labs are dangerous, yes, but you make a good point that the fact that they're illegal and dangerous does not stop them from existing.

Guns on the other hand are not typically built in people's garages. They are mass produced in factories. In countries where they are illegal, their existance in the underground is largely made possible by border crossings where they are legal.

This is where you miss the biggest point. Yes, we have a porous border. But guns flow south out of the U.S. into Mexico, not the other way around.

Mexico has one gun store, which is run by the military. It's near impossibly to own a gun legally there. And that's why the same cartels that are smuggling drugs into the States are smuggling guns south so as not to waste a trip back.

The people that were at this meet and greet today presumably had the right to own guns. It didn't help them stave off this nut. Even if one of them had a gun, do you honestly think that would stop the 19 (or more) shots he managed to get off? It was a semi-automatic pistol with an extended magazine. Assuming a magazine that holds 20 something rounds, he didn't have to reload. How long could it have taken? 5 seconds?

I am not saying that banning guns makes everything magically wonderful. I'm not even suggesting we should do it. But to say it shouldn't be on the table seems irrational.

If you limit the supply of guns, you will limit their availability. The only question in my mind is what about all the pre-existing guns? How many can you reasonably expect to recover? What mechanisms would lawfully allow existing guns to *be* recovered? It seems to me that if you ban guns, the existing guns will create a supply for the underground that will last for decades.

Addressing the other side of your argument, I don't believe that you should have the right to shoot someone unless you can prove they're threatening your life. Castle doctrine is bullshit. If someone wants to steal your TV, they're an asshole, and if they do so, they are a criminal. But if they get caught, they're not subject to the death penalty anywhere in the U.S.. Why should it be okay to kill them if you catch them in the act?

In many states, shop owners can have guns. And in many states where they can't, they do anyway. This doesn't stop liquor store or convenience store robberies because the owner might have a gun. Your idea that this is a cause for fewer "home invasions" (a bullshit politically loaded term if there ever was one) is completely without unsupported by any data. UCR data suggests that home robberies are more uniform within demographic areas regardless of gun laws. In other words, major metros with similar income levels and ethnic / educational distributions will have similar break-ins regardless if they are in Georgia, New Jersey, Michigan, or California.

Thieves don't pick businesses over homes because of fear of being shot. They do so because stores tend to be places where they think they can easily score cash. The average home is unlikely to net the thief much cash directly. He has to find something to rob and hope he or she can pawn it without being caught. They also can't as easily case the place out before hand. But any 7-11, you can walk into any time you please.

This is besides another point of fact: criminals don't commit crimes thinking ahead of time that they'll be caught. The average burger doesn't want

This was an assassination, asshole. Education about gun safety had nothing to do with it.

Indeed. This is what happens when you have prominent candidates for major political office throwing ad hominem attacks at their opponents, telling people the world will end unless they win, and advocating violent insurrection if they don't win. At least three Tea Party candidates advocated actions like what happened today:

It's inevitable. If your rhetoric involves implying that violent acts are an acceptable means of political pressure, some percentage of people will believe your bulls**t, and eventually, somebody will take it too far. It's okay to disagree. It's not okay to act like these Tea Party idiots acted in this election season. When you act that way, events like those of today are what you get.

If there is any justice in the world, the three political candidates above will be arrested promptly and charged with treason.

No kidding. If some of her supporters were armed, instead of there being 12 injured people, there'd be just one: the gunman himself.

Yes, sure, because their reactions would be so fast that they'd see the attacker drawing, identify the situation, draw their own weapons and shoot the attacher before the attacker gets a round off. Or maybe this isn't the movies, and the stoormtrooper effect doesn't work in the real world.

And also her supporters would also know that the orginal gunman was the only "bad guy" and wouldn't start shooting each other mistaking those people for gunmen intent on harm. Also, they would have all been perfect shots as well, not missing and hitting the innocent bystanders right next to the gunman. Also, they definitely wouldn't misidentify someone reaching into his coat pocket to pull out a black camera to take a photo of the congresswoman, thinking he was pulling out a gun and deciding to "take him out" before he hurt anyone.

Yes, if everyone there been armed as well, the gunman *might* have shot less people had but other people might also have been shot/killed thanks to the other armed people at the rally who meant well.

yes, sure, because their reactions would be so fast that they'd see the attacker drawing, identify the situation, draw their own weapons and shoot the attacher before the attacker gets a round off.

Not to mention the fact that having a whole bunch of people shooting at each other in a crowded grocery store is not necessarily an improvement over one guy shooting in a crowded grocery store. Did the GP ever stop to think that the good guys' bullets keep traveling? And said supporters would probably never mistake a guy reaching for his cellphone for a gunman, right?

Look, I'm a gun owner and I'm not in favor of taking away everyone's guns. But the idea that what we ought to do to be safer is have a whole bunch of random schmoes running around carrying pistols everywhere quite frankly terrifies me.

Arizona is an unrestricted state, meaning no permit is required to carry a handgun. Presumably, anyone who wanted to be armed at that event, could/would have been.
So, permissive gun laws did not prevent/mitigate this shooting, i.e. by resulting in a sheepdog (armed civilian) taking down the gunman.
Early reports say the gunman had an "automatic" weapon. It remains to be seen whether this means a semi-auto pistol (like those used at Virginia Tech, acquired legally), or a fully automatic "assault weapon". Chances are, it will turn out that the gunman used an illegal firearm, either acquired illegally or modified. So, it's unlikely that tighter gun laws would have prevented/mitigated it either.
This is a failure of security (to protect the congresswoman, staff, and the public at the event) and possibly law enforcement (to prevent an illegal firearm from getting into the gunman's hands), though Arizona gun laws being as permissive as they are, it's possible the gunman's firearm will turn out to be completely legal.

I find it interesting that one of the local TV station's call letters in Tucson is "KGUN".

Too bad the Fox News crowd and other right wing paranoid freak tea baggers can't figure out that there are far more people killed in the United States by gun toting fools than any "terrorist" could ever hope to match. Since 9/11, there have been tens of thousands killed in gun violence in the United States [nationmaster.com] (over 90,000 firearms related murders when extrapolated over nine and a half years). Maybe these idiots should recognize that gun violence needs far more attention than plane passengers X-rayed crotches. Seriously, there are third world countries that are far safer to live the United States. You are far less likely to die from a gun crime related death in Israel (even from terrorism... even from bombs... even surrounded by enemies) than you are in the United States. Idiots like you are the reason so many people die. You stick your head in the sand whenever the truth about firearms is mentioned.

If you want to protect your country from the government join the army... it is made up of normal citizens who are just as patriotic as anyone else, and who want the best for their country.

The interesting thing is that gun crime doesn't seem to be correlated to gun ownership. The Swiss have one of the highest per-capita rates of gun ownership in the world, and one of the lowest rates of gun crime. It seems that gun crime tells you more about the culture than about gun ownership.

As one of the few native Muskogee left in Southwest Georgia, I can attest to that. The local museum here is named Thronateeska, after our capital that was located in my home town, yet it has nothing about the Muskogee and the cities history starts with white settlement and most of the exhibits are from the late 19th early 20th century concerning plantation work and the Flint River.
Most of our people were transplanted to Oklahoma, and our history in our native land is all but wiped out.

...or to kill animals. There are a lot of hunters in this country, who are not killing people with their guns -- and this is in spite of the fact that a typical deer hunting rifle is many times more powerful and has a much longer effective range than a handgun. The problem of gun violence in America is not a simple matter of the availability of guns, and it will not be solved by simply making guns illegal.

Technically speaking, their role in killing people is exactly the reason for the 2nd Amendment. The amendment's purpose isn't to ensure the ability to hunt, it's to ensure the ability to engage in acts of war.

In short: everybody knows the purpose of guns is to kill people, your argument brings nothing new to the table.

Fewer legal guns make it harder to come by guns illegally. Ban guns for people other than a few LEOs (most LEOs don't need a gun), destroy existing ones and put out a bounty: everybody who "finds" and hands in a gun to be destroyed gets a thousand bucks. European and American guns are used to kill people worldwide. I'm ashamed of being from a country that's one of the worlds biggest arms dealers. Obviously there's a lot of other things that need to be done to reduce violent crime.

All that said: free societies will never be able to stop a determined crazy person (or even a group of them) from doing harm, that's just one of the downsides we all have to live with. Worth it, though.

It would not, however, be difficult to stab them, beat them with a blunt object, hit them with a car, poison them, set their house on fire, or even just go extra-savage and punch and kick them to death. It is true, guns make killing a whole lot easier (at least in terms of the mechanics of it), but America is not the only developed nation where a large fraction of the population has guns, yet we seem to have a much (by orders of magnitude) higher murder rate. There is more to the story than just the availability of guns and ammunition.

Um, since the Democrats hold two out of three of the elective branches of the US government, I don't see how you can call them "a minority party."

She is also the wife of astronaut Mark Kelly, a member of the House committee on Science and Technology, and the chairwoman of the House subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics; so this is news of interest to anybody interested in science and technology.

This type of story is news for everybody, including nerds. Secondly, she serves or served on the House Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics which affects funding for one of Slashdot's favorite government programs called NASA. Her husband is also an Astronaut for NASA.

I love how people on this very forum have had "Soap, Ballot, Jury, Ammo" at the bottom of every one of their posts for years. And when that shit actually blows up suddenly it "isn't the time for politics."

You'll notice "Ammo" is at the end of that list, and it usually comes with the admonishment, "In that order". Do you think that guy (or the people he represents, if any) went through any of the other steps, except maybe possibly the ballot box?

Politics (which I hate, by the way) encompasses the first three. The reason the fourth is there is both in order to point out that it's at the end of the list, and also to remind people that if it all really does go down shit creek, you shouldn't sit there and take it.

early reports are that the suspect is hispanic and shoutted something in another language (presumabbly spanish if they are hispanic) before the shooting.

Bullshit. The gunman was tackled while running away, and immediate and verified reports were that he's white, twenties, and clean cut. The whole "La Raza" angle is defensive politics by the Tea Party and the GOP who know that this is a textbook case of violent rhetoric whipping up a mob, one of whom actually acts on it. Whether or not that's truly the case, the right wing knows they've got a perception problem and immediately dove into the political side on their own.

No. That's the real difference between some people. Perhaps I'm being optimistic here, but I like to think that most people here value human life. I may disagree with the bulk of their politics, and I may think that they're being juvenile in congress, but I would be just as apalled if it were a Republican who had been shot. Violence is *not* the answer.

And there have been several attempted and successful assassinations of Republicans in the past. Were they cheering when Hinckley took a shot at Reagan?

Actually, pick a much more recent president, and a much more despised one... were people cheering and giving each other high-5's when Vladimir Arutyunian threw a hand grenade at Shrub?

Indeed, but given the sloppy language and the celebrity she's garnered by encouraging this sort of sentiment, she ought to be ashamed of herself for commenting on the issue. I'm just surprised that it took this long for somebody to decide that it was a good idea to go about shooting politicians.

Perhaps if the Republican party looked in the mirror and considered that perhaps encouraging violence for political gain isn't something that is moral or Christian and certainly not patriotic when it's a democratically elected offical.

Should everyone be afraid at every moment that their going to be shot by a gunman? Should everyone shoot first and ask questions later? Is one really free if he is afraid to go outside without getting shot?

Congresswoman Giffords was shot in the head, thru-and-thru, and is now out of surgery. She is in critical condition, but is alert and responding to commands, the surgeon believe she will come thru this in good condition.

Updated numbers indicate a total of 18 people injured, 5 of which are dead including a young girl about 9yrs old.

How in the hell does one guy injure eighteen people and kill five at an event that surely must have had dozens of police and security personnel?

Why would there be dozens of police and security? Congresswoman Giffords is local representative, not the president. She regularly holds "Congress on Your Corner" informal meetings at shopping centers. Anyone can come up and talk with her on any subject regarding her district. You know... actually talking with your constituents about their concerns, instead of camping out in palatial gated estates where only insiders and lobbyists are invited.

The meet-and-greet event was just starting and there were a total of about 20 people waiting to talk with Giffords, dozens more walking in and out of the market. A total of eighteen people were injured, 6 of which are dead. Not all the injured were shot. The suspect reportedly had a 9mm gun with an extended 20-round clip.